Division III regional track: EC's Foisy headed to state in 1,600

NAVARRE — Elyria Catholic’s Michaela Foisy is about to find out if Columbus is as nice in June as it is in October.

Foisy earned her first trip to the state track tournament Friday, finishing fourth in the 1,600-meter run in a time of 5:07.58 at the Division III regional meet at Fairless High School’s Barry Askren Memorial Track.

Her finish was good enough to make her the only area qualifier Friday.

Foisy used some of the strategy from cross country — where she is a two-time state qualifier — to help her in Friday’s race.

“My coach told me exactly how I needed to run the race and it played it just like he said,” said Foisy, who will run track and cross country next year at the University of Akron.

“He told me the front of the pack was going to go out fast and to just pace myself. After the first lap I was in the rear and I was starting to get a little nervous, but by the time we got to the third lap and some of the lead runners dropped off, I made a move to go up to fourth and I just held on from there.”

Her time was almost five seconds slower than the pace set by race winner Alexandrea Markovich of Hakwen, who ran a 5:02.64.

Foisy said the trip to the state tournament will be the perfect end to her high school career.

“I can’t even wrap my mind around what just happened,” she said. “I have been waiting for this day for two years. I finished sixth in regionals last year by about four seconds. This is a great opportunity for me and it will help motivate me to begin my training for college next fall.”

It wasn’t all good news for the Panthers on Friday.

The 400 relay team of Danielle Dziak, Kalynn Daniels, Karissa McGrath and Brandy Daniels that qualified third in Wednesday’s preliminaries finished dead last in the final and didn’t make it to Columbus.

Another area runner who came up just short of earning a trip to state was Open Door junior Gabrielle Neubauer, who finished fifth in the 800-meter run. Her time of 2:20.49 was 1.24 seconds shy of fourth place.

“I’m disappointed in my race,” she said. “I knew my times weren’t as good as some of the girls in the race so I knew I would have to really push myself. I didn’t do everything I could to hang with the top four but my body pretty much gave out over the final 200 meters.

“The final 200 has been my problem point all year. I just have to work even harder for next season to build myself up to finish stronger.”